Ethics panel hears first testimony in Glodis case

Tuesday

Nov 20, 2012 at 6:00 AM

By Thomas Caywood TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

The state ethics case against former Worcester County Sheriff Guy W. Glodis opened yesterday with testimony from five witnesses, including three current and former employees of the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction.

Commerce Bank and Trust Chairman David G. “Duddie” Massad also testified, as did his longtime friend Joseph T. Duggan III of Shrewsbury, a former inmate at the jail whose placement in a work release program is at the heart of the case against Mr. Glodis.

The Ethics Commission’s Enforcement Division filed an order in June alleging that Mr. Glodis violated two sections of the state conflict of interest law when he was sheriff by allegedly arranging for Mr. Duggan to be placed on work release as a favor to his wealthy friend and campaign donor, Mr. Massad.

Candies Pruitt-Doncaster, a lawyer for the Enforcement Division, sought to establish that Mr. Duggan’s placement in the program within a day of arriving at the jail to serve a four-month sentence for larceny was unusual and violated a written policy.

“Worcester County Sheriff Guy Glodis broke the rules for prominent, well-known businessman David Massad,” Ms. Pruitt-Doncaster said in her opening statement. “He was out of jail the next day. This was fast. This was unusual.”

During his cross examination of the witnesses, Mr. Glodis’ lawyer, Thomas R. Kiley, focused on the role of jail overcrowding in work release decisions. He also asked the current and former jail employees who testified if they were ever told how to classify any inmate by the former sheriff.

All three men said Mr. Glodis never spoke to them about such matters.

The two-day adjudicatory hearing is scheduled to resume this morning. It is being presided over by Ethics Commission Chairman Charles B. Swartwood, a former state judge, and will be decided by the full commission. Mr. Glodis could be fined up to $10,000, officials said.

Mr. Massad testified that he had been friends with Mr. Duggan for decades and lately had been using him as a project manager for construction jobs for his car dealerships in Auburn and a condominium development in Ashland.

When he was a state senator, Mr. Glodis worked as a business development officer for Mr. Massad’s Commerce Bank for about 18 months in 2005, before taking over as sheriff. Mr. Massad and members of his family also have been campaign donors to Mr. Glodis.

Mr. Massad said he called Mr. Glodis in October 2009 to see if Mr. Duggan could be let out of jail on work release.

Cell phone call logs showed Mr. Massad spoke to Mr. Glodis and Mr. Duggan several times throughout the day on Oct. 28, 2009, the day before the latter man was scheduled to begin his sentence.

Mr. Kiley asked if the bank chairman had asked the sheriff to do anything improper.

“Of course not,” Mr. Massad said. “I told him the situation. I said the guy didn’t hurt anybody or do anything really wrong,” Mr. Massad said. “He said it wasn’t his thing to do, but he’d see if he could have somebody help me. He said somebody would call me.”

Mr. Duggan was placed in the work release program the next day despite a written sheriff’s department policy barring inmates with “warrants or cases pending” from participating in the program. At the time, Mr. Duggan had two criminal cases pending in Westboro District Court.

The decision to release Mr. Duggan to work for Mr. Massad was made by a three-member classification board at the jail. All sentenced inmates get a classification hearing to determine if they should be placed in maximum security, medium security or the work release program within two weeks of beginning their sentences, according to testimony.

The chairman of the classification board was Marc Keddy, who has since retired from the department.

Ms. Pruitt-Doncaster asked him if it was atypical for a classification hearing to be arranged within hours of an inmate’s arrival at the jail.

“It was quick,” Mr. Keddy said.

“Was it unusually quick?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Keddy responded.

Another jail employee, social worker Jeffrey Heenan, who was a member of the classification board, testified that he couldn’t recall who instructed him to set up a classification hearing for Mr. Duggan.

Mr. Keddy, Mr. Heenan and the director of classification, Michael Landgren, all testified that they recommended Mr. Duggan be released to Mr. Massad for work because he was a nonviolent offender and doing so would free up a bed in the crowded medium security building.

Ms. Pruitt-Doncaster asked Mr. Landgren what specific exception to the classification policy allowed Mr. Duggan to be released despite his pending cases.

“There is none,” Mr. Landgren said.

Mr. Keddy said the board made the call to put Mr. Duggan on work release because he didn’t present a threat to the community.

Ms. Pruitt-Doncaster asked him where in the policy it said nonviolent offenders are exempted from the requirement that work release inmates not have any pending criminal cases.

“It doesn’t,” Mr. Keddy said.

Mr. Kiley asked Mr. Keddy about other factors that play into classification decisions, such as objections to work release from victims.

“Are there other things taken into consideration that aren’t in the policy?” he asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Keddy said.

During Mr. Duggan’s testimony he described himself as Mr. Massad’s project manager on all construction work.

A former home improvement contractor who has been stripped of his state construction supervisor licenses by state regulators for repeated misconduct, Mr. Duggan was the subject of a series of stories in the Telegram & Gazette three years ago detailing complaints from customers that he pocketed money intended for building supplies and then walked away from projects leaving them unfinished.

He was sentenced to four months in jail for a larceny conviction in one of those cases.

Mr. Duggan previously has served more than four years in federal prison for bank fraud and money laundering.

In the days before he was to report to the Worcester Country jail to serve his sentence, Mr. Duggan said he called every influential friend he had — including Mr. Massad.

Ms. Pruitt-Doncaster later returned to the point again, asking, “When you needed something done with the sheriff, you called Duddie?”

“Yes,” Mr. Duggan said.

Ms. Pruitt-Doncaster concluded her case yesterday afternoon.

The hearing is scheduled to continue this morning with Mr. Kiley calling his witnesses.